On The Swing
Spawner
Registered: 02/06/03
Posts: 554
Loc: all up in her skirt

Kind of a ridiculous fine...

But then again so is a grown man not calling out the law enforcement, and rather deciding to wage a war saying that ALL of NOAA should be abolished.Real mature, and a great way to get the conversation started in your favor &#128521;

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Viciousness with hilarity....like a shark with a funny hat!!

Lead by example in releasing wild Steelhead and other Salmonids the correct way!

Selective enforcement. I've seen it before where NMFS doesn't take legal action against a corporation that can afford a room full of lawyers, but instead takes legal action against a single private citizen who possibly has a single attorney who is out gunned and over-whelmed by the agency legal team. It's not cost effective in terms of resource protection and wise use of public funds. But I think the intent is to prevent a large number of private citizens from conducting actions that take listed species and be too numerous for the agency to contend with; i.e., if 500 people each went out and shot one seal that would tie up the entirety of LE and legal resources for years. Yet it wouldn't make a even a small dent in the harbor seal problem.

Thing is, you can actually get him on a Clean Water Act violation. You can't put biological materials into the water. Can't clean fish into the water. Found this out when we (WDF) were in technical violation of the CWA when we gaffed a salmon, spawned it, and then put the carcass back. USFS actually made WDF landfill them. In order to do the carcass returns we had to go through the SEPA approval process, which we did.

Thing is, you can actually get him on a Clean Water Act violation. You can't put biological materials into the water. Can't clean fish into the water. Found this out when we (WDF) were in technical violation of the CWA when we gaffed a salmon, spawned it, and then put the carcass back. USFS actually made WDF landfill them. In order to do the carcass returns we had to go through the SEPA approval process, which we did.

I would hope that most people could realize that "getting someone on the Clean Water Act" would be less of a waste of taxpayers funds than having totally unproductive inter-agency squabbles that only serve to please some bureaucrat that is trying to protect his/her fiefdom.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."Winston Churchill

Thing is, you can actually get him on a Clean Water Act violation. You can't put biological materials into the water. Can't clean fish into the water. Found this out when we (WDF) were in technical violation of the CWA when we gaffed a salmon, spawned it, and then put the carcass back. USFS actually made WDF landfill them. In order to do the carcass returns we had to go through the SEPA approval process, which we did.

Dang should all be punished for feeding crabs old carcasses and carcass residue that escapes crab traps? Where is the line?

Well I was told that DOE made old WDF stream surveyors toss the carcasses up on the bank so they did not pollute the stream. Heavens DNR even required timber harvesters to remove woody debris in some streams even though it was natural. One thing about a post back a bit. Years ago DOE forced a commercial pan size salmon grower out of business. She was using net pens in a private lake than was a former gravel pit. Thing is she could not afford lawyers to fight back. DOE will always zero in on those who cannot afford large legal expenses and seldom challenge those who have deep pockets.

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Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in

If you can’t see the difference of fishing with bait and hand feeding a baby seal Salmon for a publicity stunt, there is something wrong with you!I hope he gets what he wants and they throw the book at him. Explain to me why he won’t pay the fine? Do we want everyone to go down to the docks and feed Salmon to the Pinnipeds?

What Nelson did was dumb. But he did it without much thought and probably not much more heinous then what many of us have done. The difference is he did it while filming a news spot and had his face in everyone’s living room. Some people got hot and started raising hell. Unfortunately for Tom, he decided to use this to make a point. I’m sure that those who listen to his radio show will get an earful about this and the issues of seals eating Chinook, but he’s preaching to the choir. We all know seals are a problem. Ol Tom might think he’s making a point,but having broke the law by feeding salmon scraps to a seal, and then pointing out how seals are eating salmon seems counterintuitive.

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"Forgiveness is between them and God. My job is to arrange the meeting."

The legal issue is unlawful "take." The form of take that tossing a salmon fin to a seal could be is "harassment." NMFS has to prove that this action constitutes harassment. The downside is that the courts generally defer to the agency's technical expertise. The upside for Tom is that the only difference between what he did and when a seal takes a salmon from a fishing line or from a gillnet or eats the innards tossed overboard when cleaning a fish is that tossing the fin to the seal was deliberate and not coincidental, as the other actions are. So there is uncertainty in the outcome.

Not that I'm a legal expert (anymore), this old retired fishcop thinks that the definition of a "Take" requires that the fish that TJ fed the seal was wild, and covered under ESA. Obviously just any old salmon taken under legal conditions and seasons, which I'm sure Tom did, does not amount to a "Take". If there are other issues regarding feeding the sea lion, I don't know much about them. (And don't care)Maybe I'm also guilty of this infraction (not a crime) when I lost two big kings right at the side of my boat near Astoria. The salmon were under my control, almost. Maybe if I'd been more aggressive I could have netted them.

My friend, Riverguy, brings up points about overzealous bureaucrats like DOE not following the intent of the rules, but interpreting them in a way to bolster a personal view. Reminds me of when a few of us law enforcement types at a road block were huddled around a burning barrel late at night in Kid Valley in April trying to stay warm just before St' Helens erupted. DOE employee insisted that we put it out due to burn ban. Just a few miles up the road the mountain is belching sulfur fumes in huge quantities. Ridiculous. I could go on and on.

Years ago WDF pulled large woody debris from the streams, and straightened out meanders. Now we put debris in. We couldn't clean our fish in the rivers, now we do nutrient enhancement. I hope our leaders get more stuff figured out while I'm still alive, and I'm in the Home Stretch of life now.

Tug-I believe that the potential "take" may have been under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). I have not dug into the MMPA in sometime but seem to recall that feeding or attempting to feed a protected marine mammal was one of the activities that were considered a "take" under the act. The rationale maybe that such feeding may alter the behavior of the animal.